DeAndre Levy has to face Adrian Peterson, Matt Forte and Aaron Rodgers a total of six times each year, but those tasks pale in comparison to the challenges with which Levy was confronted during the offseason.

Levy, a four-year starter at outside linebacker for the Detroit Lions, ventured to South Africa and Botswana last year and continued his offseason globetrotting this year when he spent several weeks roughing it in South America.

He hiked the Inca Trail leading up to Machu Pichu and camped out in the Amazon rainforest. As if this didn't sound like an episode of "Survivor" already, Levy told John Niyo of the Detroit News that some of his meals consisted of frogs and rats that he speared himself. He also slept with a machete at night, just to be safe.

If you think Levy sounds crazy, you're not alone.

"Most of [my teammates] think it's crazy," Levy told Niyo. "They found out I went skydiving and they thought that was crazy. They thought the Amazon was nuts, eating frogs and rats and piranha and stuff like that."

For Levy, getting to the Amazon was a lifelong dream.

"Ever since I was little I've wanted to go to the Amazon,” Levy said. "And the way I went about it — I didn’t want to go on a cruise or to a resort or anything like that -- I was just out there."

Now that he's accomplished that he can move on to bigger and better things, literally. He says Mount Kilimanjaro and Kenya are his next destinations.